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The guy had armies of white supremacist supporters and advisers. He told right-wing extremists to “stand by” on national TV. Every time you gloss over this, yo

The guy had armies of white supremacist supporters and advisers. He told right-wing extremists to “stand by” on national TV. Every time you gloss over this, you give a pass to it and to those who knew about it and supported him anyway.

abc-xyz 6y ago
And Biden has a history of being pro-China, and have made it clear that he wants to end Trump’s China tariffs and treat China like we did during the Obama/Biden administration. I’d say that’s far worse, and I wager the hundreds of millions, if not billions, of people suffering from the hands of the CCP agree.
- ineedasername 6y ago
  President Trump was not working against China's human right violations either. I don't think a change of US leadership is going to make much of an impact on their quality of life one way or another.
- heimidal 6y ago
  Just to be clear, you are saying that having favorable trade policies with China is worse than directly associating the presidency with actual white supremacists? Really?
  - objektif 6y ago
    It may very well be why is it so surprising? What Trump was doing is just playing politics to a group of stupid people. On the other hand pro-China policies have potential to destroy the social fabric of this country for generations. (I am a Bernie guy do not be so quick to judge)
  - adventured 6y ago
    As opposed to Biden's belligerent life-long racism, which the left universally goes a great distance out of its way to ignore? Even Kamala Harris called him a racist. She did her best to run away from that after it was no longer convenient of course. See: Biden's statements on "a racial jungle," segregation, busing, and how he didn't want his children going to desegregated schools. See: Biden's support of the crime bill that specifically targeted and locked up a million black people. See: Biden's past friendships and associations with 'former' KKK memembers like Robert Byrd (someone he considered a good friend and mentor). Byrd was one of the most vile pieces of scum elected to the US Government in the past century. How's that for associating with white supremacists? See: Biden's racist statements about Obama prior to the 2008 election.
    - arcticbull 6y ago
      You know, people can change. Some do, and some flatly refuse to.
    - grosales 6y ago
      Obama also worked with senator Byrd. Byrd was no perfect but he disavowed his relationship with the KKK. This kind of self correction and compromise is what has always held our country's politics and made it different than other's. Obama said it better: "Listening to Senator Byrd I felt with full force all the essential contradictions of me in this new place, with its marble busts, its arcane traditions, its memories and its ghosts. I pondered the fact that, according to his own autobiography, Senator Byrd had received his first taste of leadership in his early twenties, as a member of the Raleigh County Ku Klux Klan, an association that he had long disavowed, an error he attributed—no doubt correctly—to the time and place in which he'd been raised, but which continued to surface as an issue throughout his career. I thought about how he had joined other giants of the Senate, like J. William Fulbright of Arkansas and Richard Russell of Georgia, in Southern resistance to civil rights legislation. I wondered if this would matter to the liberals who now lionized Senator Byrd for his principled opposition to the Iraq War resolution—the MoveOn.org crowd, the heirs of the political counterculture the senator had spent much of his career disdaining. I wondered if it should matter. Senator Byrd's life—like most of ours—has been the struggle of warring impulses, a twining of darkness and light. And in that sense I realized that he really was a proper emblem for the Senate, whose rules and design reflect the grand compromise of America's founding: the bargain between Northern states and Southern states, the Senate's role as a guardian against the passions of the moment, a defender of minority rights and state sovereignty, but also a tool to protect the wealthy from the rabble, and assure slaveholders of noninterference with their peculiar institution. Stamped into the very fiber of the Senate, within its genetic code, was the same contest between power and principle that characterized America as a whole, a lasting expression of that great debate among a few brilliant, flawed men that had concluded with the creation of a form of government unique in its genius—yet blind to the whip and the chain."
      - rangoon626 6y ago
        > Byrd was no perfect but he disavowed his relationship with the KKK. All is forgiven by the establishment if you’re a good boy and toe the line.
  - trumpaway 6y ago
    He also directly denounced white supremacy, many times, in fact: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bd0cMmBvqWc&feature=youtu.be&t=245 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bd0cMmBvqWc&feature=youtu.be... https://streamable.com/sr9o2s https://streamable.com/sr9o2s
- newacct583 6y ago
  Are you equating support for trade with the PRC with... white nationalism?
- epistasis 6y ago
  I think that Obama was far far harder on China than Trump. Trump gave up any semblance of influence in the region, and China has gained massive power due to the absence of US leadership in the area. The tariffs are a pointless show that have done nothing to weaken China in the least. If Biden follows Obama's direction we will gain far more geopolitical power in the region, but it will be impossible to regain all the ground that we have lost on the international stage due to Trump's general weakness and unwillingness to engage in basic statecraft.
- sgustard 6y ago
  Trump's weakening of the US's global influence and dissolving its alliance with the EU has been the greatest gift to China in a generation. All China wants is to be an unchallenged world power.
RobRivera 6y ago
>Every time you gloss over this, you give a pass to it and to those who knew about it and supported him anyway. I feel this unique cherry picking of obviously terrible stances by President Trump is used to undermine so many trump supporters who chose to vote for him for a myriad of reasons. Its discouraging to see
- pcbro141 6y ago
  The point is it should be a disqualifier. There is nothing that can convince me to vote for a person who endorses white supremacists. I cannot compromise on equal rights for all humans.
  - trumpaway 6y ago
    He disavowed white supremacists, KKK, Proud Boys, etc. several times: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bd0cMmBvqWc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bd0cMmBvqWc (4:10 is him denouncing Proud Boys, for example) https://streamable.com/sr9o2s https://streamable.com/sr9o2s
    - knodi123 6y ago
      yes, certainly he did. He also refused to. He takes both sides of lots of issues. You could make a page-a-day calendar out of quotes where he has taken opposite sides on an issue. It's a strategic decision, and it's very effective. The white nationalists can look at what he says and say "ah, he wants us to stand by. Sure, later he'll disavow us, but I got the message. wink wink." And then the people who oppose white nationalism can say "see, he disavowed it, so that clarifies everything - nothing he said before meant what it sounded like."
- epistasis 6y ago
  This is not mere cherry picking, these are actual statements, far outside the norm of any other politician at the national stage, that have resulted in violence and even death in the United States. How can you be discouraged by acknowledging the full spectrum of what this president has encouraged? What are you willing to sweep under the rug to white wash clearly bad behavior?
anonu 6y ago
Certainly, even the semblance of Trump's association with white supremacy is reason enough for him to go. We saw this evil rear its head in Charlottesville and elsewhere. But my point is, I very much doubt this is representative of 100% of the Republican electorate. I think its probably something like way less than 1%. Trump's implicit support of them elevated and amplified them and made them much bigger than they really are.
- epistasis 6y ago
  It's far far more than 1%. Vast legions of his supporters cite him saying things that others are not willing to, and that all comes down to his racist views. It takes a special sort of doublethink to not acknowledge which views he states that no other politician is willing to say.
  - longtimegoogler 6y ago
    Agree, pulling a number out of my backside it feels like at least 10% of the country have some sort of white supremacist leanings.
- lumost 6y ago
  It really doesn't take that many engaged voters to dominate a conversation if it's allowed. 99.5% of the republican base will vote for anyone with an R next to their title.
  - codegrappler 6y ago
    I think that’s true of both parties
    - beamatronic 6y ago
      When you have an openly racist candidate, shouldn’t that outweigh a voters political party loyalty? Cause that’s basic human decency.
- 6y ago
tomtomtom777 6y ago
Many of the people that voted for him, "support" him only by means of rejection of the other side. If you are against one party, you will vote for the other. The feeling of being against something is generally much stronger than the feeling of support. This is not just a Trump issue but a bipartisan one, as I wager most of the 75 million that voted for Biden, simply voted against Trump and the GOP as well.
- presentation 6y ago
  I think the true evil here is the two party system, where people have no outlet to express and advance anything more nuanced than us vs them mentality. But I don’t think that will change any time soon, if ever...
  - ericd 6y ago
    Eliminating first past the post is necessary if we want >2 parties. Maine just started doing ranked choice, maybe others will follow.
    - creata 6y ago
      Australia has ranked choice and we also have a 2-party system for all intents and purposes. I don't think ranked choice is the answer, but the voting system (mixed-member proportional) used in New Zealand and Germany seems to be doing a much better job of getting a good variety of voices in their respective legislatures.
      - davrosthedalek 6y ago
        That is certainly true, and the downsides of a two-party system are not small. On the other hand, multi-party systems have a tendency to build less stable governments, which was one of the reasons for the downfall of the Weimacher Republik and the rise of the NSDAP. With the addition of more parties to the German political spectrum, building coalitions has been harder in recent years, forcing essentially the two most central mainstream parties, CDU/CSU and SPD, to build a "great coalition". The problem of this is that people not happy with the results necessarily have to vote more extreme, and we did see a lot of protest votes, swinging from the very-left Die Linke to the ultra-right Afd, for example. Observing the political process in the US, it seems that the primaries leave the final candidates always somewhat worse for wear, maybe more so on the Democrat side than on the Republican side (Infighting seems to be a worldwide phenomenon more prevalent on the left). By necessity, most winning candidates must then do a dance from the more extreme positions they expressed to win the primaries to the center. This is almost by construction, as the voters in the primaries will almost always be more extreme than the voters in the presidential election, even if reduced to those which would consider to vote for the party in the first place.
jquery 6y ago
Trump got more support this year among every demographic but one—white males. This opinion that Trump is a white supremacist, is just that... an opinion. Very few of his supporters saw him as a white supremacist. Trump disavowed white supremacy many times. This is divisive language is something I’m glad to see Biden avoiding, so far.
- hedora 6y ago
  > Trump disavowed white supremacy many times. Source? (Preferably in the form of a video, since there is a lot of misinformation about this, and he explicitly espoused white supremacy on live TV during the first presidential debate of 2020.)
  - in_a_society 6y ago
    https://www.factcheck.org/2020/02/trump-has-condemned-white-supremacists/ https://www.factcheck.org/2020/02/trump-has-condemned-white-... The fact that the whole racist and white supremacist trope gets pushed around this much means that the media has been very effective at lying to entire populace. Think about what else they may have lied about.
    - rfw300 6y ago
      Ah yes, I must’ve been hearing things all those years ago when Trump called for a “complete and total shutdown of Muslims entering the country”. Extremely non-racist thing to say. Get over yourself.
      - OCASM 6y ago
        Islam is a religion, not a race.
      - in_a_society 6y ago
        It was 7 counties identified by the previous admin as high risk. Lots of Muslims were still allowed to enter. I should know, I’m middle eastern myself.
2V4MpJD8uGXm 6y ago
Do you remember when Obama's AG dismissed charges against black supremacists for voter intimidation and then one of them went on to say "You’re going to have to go into the God damn nursery and just throw a damn bomb in the damn nursery and just kill everything white in sight that ain’t right." and "drag some of these god damn rusty dusty ass crackers out of their homes, skin their asses alive, hang their asses up by some damn rope in some trees, drag them up and down the streets by God damn trucks, sick the pit bulls on them, pour acid on their asses, dump them in a God damn river, bring them back up, bust them in the head with a rock." I am just curious if you think we should apply the same standard to Obama and his administration.
- hedora 6y ago
  After all that happened, did Obama tell the nut job to “stand down and stand by” with the lynching plan? It’s one thing to give someone the benefit of the doubt and be wrong. It is another to explicitly condone their behavior after the fact. (Also, I’ve never heard of the incident you’re talking about. Searching for the quote leads to some blogs, but no reputable sources. Are you sure the event happened?)
  - 2V4MpJD8uGXm 6y ago
    Obama didn't really say anything about it and neither did the media. I think that's sort of my point. I think racism in one direction is amplified and racism in another is ignored and I think that's extremely dangerous and probably leads to more racism. and sources here but OP didn't post sources for "armies of white supremacist supporters and advisers" which is normally against HN guidelines but I guess those are ignored also. [1][2] [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Black_Panther_Party_voter_intimidation_case https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Black_Panther_Party_voter_... [2]: https://www.adl.org/blog/king-samir-shabazz-bomb-white-churches-and-kill-white-babies https://www.adl.org/blog/king-samir-shabazz-bomb-white-churc...
aww_dang 6y ago
1) Observe that the country is divided 2) Make a divisive statement accusing the other side of creating division 3) Throw racism and identity politics into the mix, that always helps 4) Repeat as necessary "Trump Is Losing Ground With White Voters But Gaining Among Black And Hispanic Americans" https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/trump-is-losing-ground-with-white-voters-but-gaining-among-black-and-hispanic-americans/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/trump-is-losing-ground-...
- arcticbull 6y ago
  Yes he now has 8% of the African American vote up from 6%. It’s remarkable you can find 92-94% of such a large and diverse diaspora that agrees you’re a bad fit. The increase in the support levels among Latinx is definitely more substantial, and likely has to do with the fact that the right wing has been ginning up fear around “socialism” to a group historically seriously injured by it. (Bearing in mind of course that the definition of socialism which has caused harm in Latin America is the state owning the means of production, and there is absolutely unequivocally zero support for that among Democrats — who range from center-right to at most a flavor of social democrat).
  - aww_dang 6y ago
    That's fine. People can hold different opinions. Accusing people who disagree of being racist isn't just divisive, it is nonsensical. Who are these voters racist against? The premise makes even less sense if you're calling out divisive rhetoric.
    - arcticbull 6y ago
      One thing that I found really interesting is the way right wing television is explaining to the public how Trump cannot possibly be racist because he has African-American voters. This is the same way you can’t be racist because if have a black friend. This cuts both ways as you point out. People vote for all sorts of reasons, and people are willing to overlook racism because they have higher priority issues. Just because the president is a racist doesn’t necessarily make you racist for voting for him. It just means you have things you consider more important. Having African American voters doesn’t make you somehow not a racist, and voting for a racist doesn’t necessarily make you one. That’s how far the American political system has fallen.
rayiner 6y ago
He had “white supremacist advisors?”
- tracer4201 6y ago
  To call Stephen Miller a white supremacist is probably actually an understatement. Same goes for Steve Bannon:
  - hedora 6y ago
    Yeah; Bannon just got banned from social media for calling for Fauci’s (and someone else’s) beheading. Miller has published neo-Nazi propaganda in the recent past. I think he’s the one who says Hitler’s chief of propaganda is his primary role model, but I might have him confused with someone else in Trump’s inner circle.
- supercanuck 6y ago
  Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller
  - aarondp 6y ago
    Seriously?
    - supercanuck 6y ago
      Yes.
- tptacek 6y ago
  There is real evidence of Steve Miller being a white supremacist; notably, emails have leaked where he warmly cited _Camp Of The Saints_. Reportedly, Miller was instrumental in the Trump policy of using family separation as a deliberately deterrence rather than a grotesque expediency. The burden on accusations against Miller has probably shifted towards his defenders. Bannon is a goblin but I preemptively concede that there's not much evidence of his problems being racialized. But Miller you can't say that about.
seebetter 6y ago
You’re delusional.
spaginal 6y ago
No he didn’t. This is a lie allowed to continue unabated and it’s done an incredible amount of damage to just simple civil dialogue in this country.
- tbwriting 6y ago
  Nah, he did. Matter of public record.
  - mcfly1985 6y ago
    Get fucked faggot.
  - spaginal 6y ago
    He didn’t. Any person honest with themselves will admit to this. I lean more conservative and had my own issues with Trump and his presidency, but I looked at his policy, words, and his actions. I still voted for him because I felt he aligned with the policies I wanted to move towards. Falling into such a blatant lie about his racism though exposes any person that keeps repeating it as intellectually weak, easily manipulated, and wholly dishonest. Frankly, I’m disappointed to see it repeated and upvoted on Hacker News. I come here to see intellectual comments and discussion, not low brow Twitter and Reddit garbage.
    - cutemonster 6y ago
      Why do you think he didn't? Is it that you didn't see that interview with him, and you cannot believe he'd say such things? Personally I listened to when he said "stand back, stand by".
      - 8note 6y ago
        I'm no trump fam, but I think he's too dumb to notice the subtlety on those words It's just more inane rambling
        6y ago
m0zg 6y ago
Isn't it amazing when a "white supremacist" improves his vote share of _every_ minority demographic (getting the highest share of GOP minority vote since the 60s), and does worse with white men. A goddamn miracle. This is the same guy who received awards from black community organizations before he ran, and had a black girlfriend for a while. https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/trump-vote-rising-among-blacks-hispanics-despite-conventional-wisdom-ncna1245787 https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/trump-vote-rising-amon...
- tbwriting 6y ago
  Yes. It is pretty amazing.
- Kaze404 6y ago
  Yeah, an increase to 8% of the African American population from 6% is definitely a miracle. He's clearly a figure of black activism now.
  - m0zg 6y ago
    For a "white supremacist" it is. For a GOP candidate it is, too - we haven't seen anything like this for 60 years. I mean, another explanation is maybe you've been gaslit by the press, but that's a "conspiracy theory", right?
    - Kaze404 6y ago
      “Thousands of men of Jewish descent and hundreds of what the Nazis called ‘full Jews’ served in the military with Hitler’s knowledge. The Nazis allowed these men to serve but at the same time exterminated their families,” Rigg said. [1] Did the former German soldiers of Jewish heritage gaslit this journalist too? Or am I being gaslit by the journalist? So many layers! [1] https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1996-12-24-mn-12209-story.html https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1996-12-24-mn-12209-...
      - m0zg 6y ago
sjg007 6y ago
Nah just a bunch of Facebook trolls who convinced 49% of Americans to vote for him .
faddypaddy34 6y ago
These things you say aren't even true. He's condemned white supremacists at least 27 times. Listen to the entire speech post Charlottesville speech. You are an example of the problem you just believe what you hear with out checking out facts. Trump has a lot of faults. Stop making stuff up. Also you might want to look at the "white" supremacists proud boy membership roles you might be surprised at how diverse it is.

abc-xyz 6y ago

And Biden has a history of being pro-China, and have made it clear that he wants to end Trump’s China tariffs and treat China like we did during the Obama/Biden administration. I’d say that’s far worse, and I wager the hundreds of millions, if not billions, of people suffering from the hands of the CCP agree.

ineedasername 6y ago
President Trump was not working against China's human right violations either. I don't think a change of US leadership is going to make much of an impact on their quality of life one way or another.
heimidal 6y ago
Just to be clear, you are saying that having favorable trade policies with China is worse than directly associating the presidency with actual white supremacists? Really?
- objektif 6y ago
  It may very well be why is it so surprising? What Trump was doing is just playing politics to a group of stupid people. On the other hand pro-China policies have potential to destroy the social fabric of this country for generations. (I am a Bernie guy do not be so quick to judge)
- adventured 6y ago
  As opposed to Biden's belligerent life-long racism, which the left universally goes a great distance out of its way to ignore? Even Kamala Harris called him a racist. She did her best to run away from that after it was no longer convenient of course. See: Biden's statements on "a racial jungle," segregation, busing, and how he didn't want his children going to desegregated schools. See: Biden's support of the crime bill that specifically targeted and locked up a million black people. See: Biden's past friendships and associations with 'former' KKK memembers like Robert Byrd (someone he considered a good friend and mentor). Byrd was one of the most vile pieces of scum elected to the US Government in the past century. How's that for associating with white supremacists? See: Biden's racist statements about Obama prior to the 2008 election.
  - arcticbull 6y ago
    You know, people can change. Some do, and some flatly refuse to.
  - grosales 6y ago
    Obama also worked with senator Byrd. Byrd was no perfect but he disavowed his relationship with the KKK. This kind of self correction and compromise is what has always held our country's politics and made it different than other's. Obama said it better: "Listening to Senator Byrd I felt with full force all the essential contradictions of me in this new place, with its marble busts, its arcane traditions, its memories and its ghosts. I pondered the fact that, according to his own autobiography, Senator Byrd had received his first taste of leadership in his early twenties, as a member of the Raleigh County Ku Klux Klan, an association that he had long disavowed, an error he attributed—no doubt correctly—to the time and place in which he'd been raised, but which continued to surface as an issue throughout his career. I thought about how he had joined other giants of the Senate, like J. William Fulbright of Arkansas and Richard Russell of Georgia, in Southern resistance to civil rights legislation. I wondered if this would matter to the liberals who now lionized Senator Byrd for his principled opposition to the Iraq War resolution—the MoveOn.org crowd, the heirs of the political counterculture the senator had spent much of his career disdaining. I wondered if it should matter. Senator Byrd's life—like most of ours—has been the struggle of warring impulses, a twining of darkness and light. And in that sense I realized that he really was a proper emblem for the Senate, whose rules and design reflect the grand compromise of America's founding: the bargain between Northern states and Southern states, the Senate's role as a guardian against the passions of the moment, a defender of minority rights and state sovereignty, but also a tool to protect the wealthy from the rabble, and assure slaveholders of noninterference with their peculiar institution. Stamped into the very fiber of the Senate, within its genetic code, was the same contest between power and principle that characterized America as a whole, a lasting expression of that great debate among a few brilliant, flawed men that had concluded with the creation of a form of government unique in its genius—yet blind to the whip and the chain."
    - rangoon626 6y ago
      > Byrd was no perfect but he disavowed his relationship with the KKK. All is forgiven by the establishment if you’re a good boy and toe the line.
- trumpaway 6y ago
  He also directly denounced white supremacy, many times, in fact: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bd0cMmBvqWc&feature=youtu.be&t=245 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bd0cMmBvqWc&feature=youtu.be... https://streamable.com/sr9o2s https://streamable.com/sr9o2s
newacct583 6y ago
Are you equating support for trade with the PRC with... white nationalism?
epistasis 6y ago
I think that Obama was far far harder on China than Trump. Trump gave up any semblance of influence in the region, and China has gained massive power due to the absence of US leadership in the area. The tariffs are a pointless show that have done nothing to weaken China in the least. If Biden follows Obama's direction we will gain far more geopolitical power in the region, but it will be impossible to regain all the ground that we have lost on the international stage due to Trump's general weakness and unwillingness to engage in basic statecraft.
sgustard 6y ago
Trump's weakening of the US's global influence and dissolving its alliance with the EU has been the greatest gift to China in a generation. All China wants is to be an unchallenged world power.

RobRivera 6y ago

>Every time you gloss over this, you give a pass to it and to those who knew about it and supported him anyway. I feel this unique cherry picking of obviously terrible stances by President Trump is used to undermine so many trump supporters who chose to vote for him for a myriad of reasons. Its discouraging to see

pcbro141 6y ago
The point is it should be a disqualifier. There is nothing that can convince me to vote for a person who endorses white supremacists. I cannot compromise on equal rights for all humans.
- trumpaway 6y ago
  He disavowed white supremacists, KKK, Proud Boys, etc. several times: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bd0cMmBvqWc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bd0cMmBvqWc (4:10 is him denouncing Proud Boys, for example) https://streamable.com/sr9o2s https://streamable.com/sr9o2s
  - knodi123 6y ago
    yes, certainly he did. He also refused to. He takes both sides of lots of issues. You could make a page-a-day calendar out of quotes where he has taken opposite sides on an issue. It's a strategic decision, and it's very effective. The white nationalists can look at what he says and say "ah, he wants us to stand by. Sure, later he'll disavow us, but I got the message. wink wink." And then the people who oppose white nationalism can say "see, he disavowed it, so that clarifies everything - nothing he said before meant what it sounded like."
epistasis 6y ago
This is not mere cherry picking, these are actual statements, far outside the norm of any other politician at the national stage, that have resulted in violence and even death in the United States. How can you be discouraged by acknowledging the full spectrum of what this president has encouraged? What are you willing to sweep under the rug to white wash clearly bad behavior?

anonu 6y ago

Certainly, even the semblance of Trump's association with white supremacy is reason enough for him to go. We saw this evil rear its head in Charlottesville and elsewhere. But my point is, I very much doubt this is representative of 100% of the Republican electorate. I think its probably something like way less than 1%. Trump's implicit support of them elevated and amplified them and made them much bigger than they really are.

epistasis 6y ago
It's far far more than 1%. Vast legions of his supporters cite him saying things that others are not willing to, and that all comes down to his racist views. It takes a special sort of doublethink to not acknowledge which views he states that no other politician is willing to say.
- longtimegoogler 6y ago
  Agree, pulling a number out of my backside it feels like at least 10% of the country have some sort of white supremacist leanings.
lumost 6y ago
It really doesn't take that many engaged voters to dominate a conversation if it's allowed. 99.5% of the republican base will vote for anyone with an R next to their title.
- codegrappler 6y ago
  I think that’s true of both parties
  - beamatronic 6y ago
    When you have an openly racist candidate, shouldn’t that outweigh a voters political party loyalty? Cause that’s basic human decency.
6y ago

tomtomtom777 6y ago

Many of the people that voted for him, "support" him only by means of rejection of the other side. If you are against one party, you will vote for the other. The feeling of being against something is generally much stronger than the feeling of support. This is not just a Trump issue but a bipartisan one, as I wager most of the 75 million that voted for Biden, simply voted against Trump and the GOP as well.

presentation 6y ago
I think the true evil here is the two party system, where people have no outlet to express and advance anything more nuanced than us vs them mentality. But I don’t think that will change any time soon, if ever...
- ericd 6y ago
  Eliminating first past the post is necessary if we want >2 parties. Maine just started doing ranked choice, maybe others will follow.
  - creata 6y ago
    Australia has ranked choice and we also have a 2-party system for all intents and purposes. I don't think ranked choice is the answer, but the voting system (mixed-member proportional) used in New Zealand and Germany seems to be doing a much better job of getting a good variety of voices in their respective legislatures.
    - davrosthedalek 6y ago
      That is certainly true, and the downsides of a two-party system are not small. On the other hand, multi-party systems have a tendency to build less stable governments, which was one of the reasons for the downfall of the Weimacher Republik and the rise of the NSDAP. With the addition of more parties to the German political spectrum, building coalitions has been harder in recent years, forcing essentially the two most central mainstream parties, CDU/CSU and SPD, to build a "great coalition". The problem of this is that people not happy with the results necessarily have to vote more extreme, and we did see a lot of protest votes, swinging from the very-left Die Linke to the ultra-right Afd, for example. Observing the political process in the US, it seems that the primaries leave the final candidates always somewhat worse for wear, maybe more so on the Democrat side than on the Republican side (Infighting seems to be a worldwide phenomenon more prevalent on the left). By necessity, most winning candidates must then do a dance from the more extreme positions they expressed to win the primaries to the center. This is almost by construction, as the voters in the primaries will almost always be more extreme than the voters in the presidential election, even if reduced to those which would consider to vote for the party in the first place.

jquery 6y ago

Trump got more support this year among every demographic but one—white males. This opinion that Trump is a white supremacist, is just that... an opinion. Very few of his supporters saw him as a white supremacist. Trump disavowed white supremacy many times. This is divisive language is something I’m glad to see Biden avoiding, so far.

hedora 6y ago
> Trump disavowed white supremacy many times. Source? (Preferably in the form of a video, since there is a lot of misinformation about this, and he explicitly espoused white supremacy on live TV during the first presidential debate of 2020.)
- in_a_society 6y ago
  https://www.factcheck.org/2020/02/trump-has-condemned-white-supremacists/ https://www.factcheck.org/2020/02/trump-has-condemned-white-... The fact that the whole racist and white supremacist trope gets pushed around this much means that the media has been very effective at lying to entire populace. Think about what else they may have lied about.
  - rfw300 6y ago
    Ah yes, I must’ve been hearing things all those years ago when Trump called for a “complete and total shutdown of Muslims entering the country”. Extremely non-racist thing to say. Get over yourself.
    - OCASM 6y ago
      Islam is a religion, not a race.
    - in_a_society 6y ago
      It was 7 counties identified by the previous admin as high risk. Lots of Muslims were still allowed to enter. I should know, I’m middle eastern myself.

2V4MpJD8uGXm 6y ago

Do you remember when Obama's AG dismissed charges against black supremacists for voter intimidation and then one of them went on to say "You’re going to have to go into the God damn nursery and just throw a damn bomb in the damn nursery and just kill everything white in sight that ain’t right." and "drag some of these god damn rusty dusty ass crackers out of their homes, skin their asses alive, hang their asses up by some damn rope in some trees, drag them up and down the streets by God damn trucks, sick the pit bulls on them, pour acid on their asses, dump them in a God damn river, bring them back up, bust them in the head with a rock." I am just curious if you think we should apply the same standard to Obama and his administration.

hedora 6y ago
After all that happened, did Obama tell the nut job to “stand down and stand by” with the lynching plan? It’s one thing to give someone the benefit of the doubt and be wrong. It is another to explicitly condone their behavior after the fact. (Also, I’ve never heard of the incident you’re talking about. Searching for the quote leads to some blogs, but no reputable sources. Are you sure the event happened?)
- 2V4MpJD8uGXm 6y ago
  Obama didn't really say anything about it and neither did the media. I think that's sort of my point. I think racism in one direction is amplified and racism in another is ignored and I think that's extremely dangerous and probably leads to more racism. and sources here but OP didn't post sources for "armies of white supremacist supporters and advisers" which is normally against HN guidelines but I guess those are ignored also. [1][2] [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Black_Panther_Party_voter_intimidation_case https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Black_Panther_Party_voter_... [2]: https://www.adl.org/blog/king-samir-shabazz-bomb-white-churches-and-kill-white-babies https://www.adl.org/blog/king-samir-shabazz-bomb-white-churc...

aww_dang 6y ago

1) Observe that the country is divided 2) Make a divisive statement accusing the other side of creating division 3) Throw racism and identity politics into the mix, that always helps 4) Repeat as necessary "Trump Is Losing Ground With White Voters But Gaining Among Black And Hispanic Americans" https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/trump-is-losing-ground-with-white-voters-but-gaining-among-black-and-hispanic-americans/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/trump-is-losing-ground-...

arcticbull 6y ago
Yes he now has 8% of the African American vote up from 6%. It’s remarkable you can find 92-94% of such a large and diverse diaspora that agrees you’re a bad fit. The increase in the support levels among Latinx is definitely more substantial, and likely has to do with the fact that the right wing has been ginning up fear around “socialism” to a group historically seriously injured by it. (Bearing in mind of course that the definition of socialism which has caused harm in Latin America is the state owning the means of production, and there is absolutely unequivocally zero support for that among Democrats — who range from center-right to at most a flavor of social democrat).
- aww_dang 6y ago
  That's fine. People can hold different opinions. Accusing people who disagree of being racist isn't just divisive, it is nonsensical. Who are these voters racist against? The premise makes even less sense if you're calling out divisive rhetoric.
  - arcticbull 6y ago
    One thing that I found really interesting is the way right wing television is explaining to the public how Trump cannot possibly be racist because he has African-American voters. This is the same way you can’t be racist because if have a black friend. This cuts both ways as you point out. People vote for all sorts of reasons, and people are willing to overlook racism because they have higher priority issues. Just because the president is a racist doesn’t necessarily make you racist for voting for him. It just means you have things you consider more important. Having African American voters doesn’t make you somehow not a racist, and voting for a racist doesn’t necessarily make you one. That’s how far the American political system has fallen.

rayiner 6y ago

He had “white supremacist advisors?”

tracer4201 6y ago
To call Stephen Miller a white supremacist is probably actually an understatement. Same goes for Steve Bannon:
- hedora 6y ago
  Yeah; Bannon just got banned from social media for calling for Fauci’s (and someone else’s) beheading. Miller has published neo-Nazi propaganda in the recent past. I think he’s the one who says Hitler’s chief of propaganda is his primary role model, but I might have him confused with someone else in Trump’s inner circle.
supercanuck 6y ago
Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller
- aarondp 6y ago
  Seriously?
  - supercanuck 6y ago
    Yes.
tptacek 6y ago
There is real evidence of Steve Miller being a white supremacist; notably, emails have leaked where he warmly cited _Camp Of The Saints_. Reportedly, Miller was instrumental in the Trump policy of using family separation as a deliberately deterrence rather than a grotesque expediency. The burden on accusations against Miller has probably shifted towards his defenders. Bannon is a goblin but I preemptively concede that there's not much evidence of his problems being racialized. But Miller you can't say that about.

seebetter 6y ago

You’re delusional.

spaginal 6y ago

No he didn’t. This is a lie allowed to continue unabated and it’s done an incredible amount of damage to just simple civil dialogue in this country.

tbwriting 6y ago
Nah, he did. Matter of public record.
- mcfly1985 6y ago
  Get fucked faggot.
- spaginal 6y ago
  He didn’t. Any person honest with themselves will admit to this. I lean more conservative and had my own issues with Trump and his presidency, but I looked at his policy, words, and his actions. I still voted for him because I felt he aligned with the policies I wanted to move towards. Falling into such a blatant lie about his racism though exposes any person that keeps repeating it as intellectually weak, easily manipulated, and wholly dishonest. Frankly, I’m disappointed to see it repeated and upvoted on Hacker News. I come here to see intellectual comments and discussion, not low brow Twitter and Reddit garbage.
  - cutemonster 6y ago
    Why do you think he didn't? Is it that you didn't see that interview with him, and you cannot believe he'd say such things? Personally I listened to when he said "stand back, stand by".
    - 8note 6y ago
      I'm no trump fam, but I think he's too dumb to notice the subtlety on those words It's just more inane rambling
      - 6y ago

m0zg 6y ago

Isn't it amazing when a "white supremacist" improves his vote share of _every_ minority demographic (getting the highest share of GOP minority vote since the 60s), and does worse with white men. A goddamn miracle. This is the same guy who received awards from black community organizations before he ran, and had a black girlfriend for a while. https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/trump-vote-rising-among-blacks-hispanics-despite-conventional-wisdom-ncna1245787 https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/trump-vote-rising-amon...

tbwriting 6y ago
Yes. It is pretty amazing.
Kaze404 6y ago
Yeah, an increase to 8% of the African American population from 6% is definitely a miracle. He's clearly a figure of black activism now.
- m0zg 6y ago
  For a "white supremacist" it is. For a GOP candidate it is, too - we haven't seen anything like this for 60 years. I mean, another explanation is maybe you've been gaslit by the press, but that's a "conspiracy theory", right?
  - Kaze404 6y ago
    “Thousands of men of Jewish descent and hundreds of what the Nazis called ‘full Jews’ served in the military with Hitler’s knowledge. The Nazis allowed these men to serve but at the same time exterminated their families,” Rigg said. [1] Did the former German soldiers of Jewish heritage gaslit this journalist too? Or am I being gaslit by the journalist? So many layers! [1] https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1996-12-24-mn-12209-story.html https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1996-12-24-mn-12209-...
    - m0zg 6y ago

sjg007 6y ago

Nah just a bunch of Facebook trolls who convinced 49% of Americans to vote for him .

faddypaddy34 6y ago

These things you say aren't even true. He's condemned white supremacists at least 27 times. Listen to the entire speech post Charlottesville speech. You are an example of the problem you just believe what you hear with out checking out facts. Trump has a lot of faults. Stop making stuff up. Also you might want to look at the "white" supremacists proud boy membership roles you might be surprised at how diverse it is.